SPE-GCS & AADE: Cuttings Transport - Mechanistic Models, Data Driven Models, and More
THIS EVENT WILL BE HELD IN PERSON AND ALSO VIA WEBINAR
WEBINAR TIME IS NOON (12:00pm) TO 1:00pm. INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESSING THE WEBINAR WILL BE SENT TO REGISTRANTS IN THE MORNING PRIOR TO THE MEETING
THE WEBINAR PORTION OF THE EVENT IS FREE FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS. EMAIL JESUS.CAPO@GMAIL.COM FOR REGISTRATIONS.
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Drilling practice has been evolving parallel to the developments in the oil and gas industry. Current supply and demand for oil and gas dictates search for hydrocarbons either at much deeper and hard-to-reach fields, or at unconventional fields, both requiring extended reach wells, long horizontal sections, and 3D complex trajectories. Cuttings transport is one of the most challenging problems while drilling such wells, especially at mid-range inclinations. For many years, numerous studies have been conducted to address modeling of cuttings transport, estimation of the concentration of cuttings as well as pressure losses inside the wellbores, considering various drilling variables having influence on the process. However, such attempts, either mechanistic or empirical, have many limitations due to various simplifications and assumptions made during the development stage. Fluid thixotropy, temperature variations in the wellbore, uncertainty in pipe eccentricity as well as chaotic motion of cuttings due to pipe rotation, imperfections in the wellbore walls, variations in the size and shape of the cuttings, presence of tool joints on the drillstring, etc causes the modeling of the problem extremely difficult.
In this presentation, mechanistic models and data driven models are discussed to address the estimation of cuttings concentration and frictional loss estimation in a well during drilling operations. The training of the data driven models are determined using the experimental data regarding cuttings transport tests collected in the last 40 years at The University of Tulsa – Drilling Research Projects, which includes a wide range of wellbore and pipe sizes, inclinations, ROPs, pipe rotation speeds, flow rates, fluid and cuttings properties. As the inputs of the data driven models, independent drilling variables are directly used. Also, as a second approach, dimensionless groups are developed based on these independent drilling variables, and these dimensionless groups are used as the inputs of the models. Moreover, performance of the data driven model results are compared with the results of a conventional mechanistic model. It is observed that in many cases, data driven models perform reasonably successful, which provides a very promising direction to consider for real time drilling optimization and automation.
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Registration & Walk-ins
All attendees are encouraged to register and pay online for this event. This is a more efficient means of registering for the event and enables the registration process at the meeting to move much faster. Walk-in space is available on a seat-limited basis at a fee more than the on-line registration fee.
Location:
Petroleum Club of Houston
1201 Louisiana St, 35th Floor
Houston
,
Texas 77002